It's my contention, however, that it's the current game iwin 270 generation of games that have enjoyed the most fruitful experimentation with the paratextual. It took developers a while, but we are finally starting to see some amazingly creative handling of paratexts.
One of my favourite examples comes from Ubisoft's game Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Many people are familiar with the Ubisoft company logo that frequently pops onscreen at the start of their games; it's a kind of smooth, white, swirling movement accompanied by a pleasant electronic whooshing and pinging sound.
When it comes to Assassin's Creed: Revelations, however, some clever individual had the fantastic idea of manipulating the Ubisoft logo in such a manner as to make it sympathetic with the events of the game. Usually tai game iwin idents are entirely separate from the gameworld, neither visually nor sonically consistent with the art style of the game in question. Assassin's Creed: Revelations, however, is different.
In this game, the protagonist, Desmond, is comatose, trapped in the animus; something has gone very definitely wrong. A dead man is speaking to him, his ancestors' memories are all jumbled and out of whack, and Desmond himself has access to the deeper code structures of the programme. In a really cool reflection of this, the game opens not with the familiar Ubisoft logo,tai game iwin 270 but with a deliberately glitched and distorted one.
Not only is this a fantastic paratextual representation of the game's aesthetic themes, but it's also a great aid to player immersion. The animus is glitched and spreading into Desmond's mind--accordingly, these problems are also spreading into the paratextual aspects of the game, even the designers' logo. They're breaching the usual boundaries of the gameworld. Spilling the visual ideas of the game into its own paratext really gives the opening a kick. It functions as a beautiful microcosm for Revelations' story: just as the memories of Ezio and Altair and Desmond are converging, slipping over one another and glitching together, so too is the game's aesthetic spilling over into its own paratext. Great stuff.
Another example of paratext in gaming is the seemingly ubiquitous HUD. Heads-up displays aren't part of the world of most games, per se. They're onscreen information presented for the benefit of the player, and most definitely not accessible to the characters. Kratos never looks at the corner of the screen and comments on how many red orbs he has collected; Ratchet never pauses to think about how many more aliens he needs to kill before his upgrade bar fills; Nathan Drake can't really see a white line predicting the curve game iwin through the air of the grenade he's about to throw. This stuff is on top of the game; it surrounds it, but it's not part of the environment. It's paratextual.
But recent years have seen several developers willing to toy with the idea of HUDs, usually with the goal of increasing player immersion. One of the better examples is found in Dead Space and its sequels.
In Dead Space, there isn't a HUD, as such; instead, all of the information you need is incorporated into Isaac Clarke's suit and gear. His remaining ammo is displayed on his weapon, his health bar is a line of lights traced up his spine, and his options menu is a hologram projected from his suit. In essence, the designers of Dead Space have done away with the HUD as a purely paratextual object and have incorporated it as a literal part of the gameworld.